Atlanta Reign Hand New York Excelsior First Loss This Season

Heading into today’s Overwatch League match between the struggling Atlanta Reign, and the dominant New York Excelsior, no one would have predicted that one of the only remaining undefeated OWL teams would lose. 

Thanks to some stellar play by returning D.Va star Daco, and folks like Dogman and BabyBay stepping up, the NYXL just didn’t see the Reign coming. 

Through 4 maps, the Atlanta Reign barely relinquished any space to the powerhouse NYXL, and it quickly turned into some of the most dominant wins we’ve seen this season, let alone this split. 

Fans had some hopes as we entered the Overwatch League Stage 2, but the loss of beloved Dafran had expectations lay somewhere in the reasonable camp. After getting reverse swept by the Boston Uprising (something a lot of teams are guilty of at this point), and getting shutout by the London Spitfire in Week 1, the Atlanta Reign handed the Los Angeles Valiant their first win of the entire season in Week 2. 

It was looking pretty grim for a post-Dafran Reign. Today, however, the boys from Atlanta firmly re-gripped the excitement of the Blizzard Arena and did their fans proud. 

Coming into Friday’s matches, the New York Excelsior had 12 wins out of 12 games played. Yes, they were knocked out of the first round of the Stage 1 Playoffs in dramatic fashion by the Seoul Dynasty, but the Excelsior took to their standard top-tier ways the moment Stage 2 kicked off. 

The Atlanta Reign has a ton of talent on paper, but have been one of those squads that are just struggling to live up to that hype. Now, riding on the back of their win last week against the lowly Washington Justice, they take it to the highest ranked teams in pretty dominant fashion. 

With the win, the Reign now sit at 2W - 3L in the stage so far. They became the first team to give the Valiant a win, and the first team to take one from the Excelsior. 

“My old friend Tom once said that if you get knocked down 8 times, you get up 9,” said a normally bullish, but rather reserved Dusttin “Dogman” Bowerman in his post-game interview. "All I’m trying to do is focus on improving myself and keeping myself accountable" mentioned Dogman in a different interview with our very own Matt Buchholtz. It seems the new internal team mentality is paying off. 

Looking ahead, the Atlanta Reign have another chance to prove that today wasn’t just a flash in the pan, because they will face the very same New York Excelsior in Week 5 of Stage 2.